“I-I-I don’t understand,” I stammer, wedged into my seat and surrounded by three Hotties of the Living Dead. “How have you been able to get away with it for so long?”
Clarissa, the tallest of the zombie hotties, hangs a finger over her shoulder at the framed black and white picture of class valedictorian-to-be Angela Prescott; the one with the black armband across it that reads “RIP.”
“Angela used to do all our homework for us,” Clarissa explains, twirling a cool ginger curl around her pale white finger.
Then she casts major shade at volleyball star Hunter Jag and says, “Until someone got a little too hungry one night last week and ate our star tutor.”
“How long are you going to beat that dead horse anyway?” asks Hunter, sneering from beneath her straight black bangs. “I dare any of you to resist the temptation of her great, giant, HUGE brain. I’m not kidding you; it was GINORMOUS.”
“You should know,” quips the third and final member of the undead, Rena Strong, whipping her blond hair back away from her radiant, if pale, face. “Since you ate it.”
“Uh, guys,” I groan, suddenly feeling six shades of queasy. “You’re in mixed company, remember?”
The three girls surrounding my desk give each other major “can you believe this guy” face before turning back to me.
“So what’s it going to be, Egghead?” asks Clarissa as the other two kind of drift back to their desks. “Help us… or join us?”
“What, those are my only two options?”
I peer across the room at the front door, mentally gauging how close I could get to it before these three zombies rip my skull open and share my brain.
“Pretty much, Miles. Now that you know, we can’t let you leave this room alive unless you agree to help us.”
I shake my head and stare out at the otherwise empty study hall lounge; the alternating white and green tiles on the floor, the motivational 1972 cat hanging from a tree limb “Hang in There” poster, the wall calendar from the cafeteria and the three blackboards on each wall.
“But you guys told me,” I whine, heart pounding in a way these girls will never feel again. “It wasn’t like I, you know, suspected or anything.”
“We had to tell you,” argues Clarissa. “Before you found out.”
“No, you didn’t,” I argue. “I wouldn’t have found out, I wouldn’t have bothered to check because I don’t really care. The only reason I’m in stupid study hall in the first place is because Dean Winters told me I’d get 30 extra credit points in my Civics class, and that’s the only class I have less than an A in at the moment.”
“Everybody cares, Miles,” grins Hunter from under the Map of the World. “Don’t you care just a little?”
“No,” I spit. “No, I really don’t!”
“Then you’d be the first,” Hunter declares.
I look down on the lab style table in front of me; they’ve carefully laid out three assignments they need done by the end of the week: Clarissa needs a book report done on Great Expectations, Hunter needs to cobble together 12 facts about World War II for AP History (how did she ever get in????) and Rena has an essay question due for Chorus: “Who is your favorite jazz singer before 1970?”
“I can’t do all this by Friday and my own homework.”
“So don’t do your homework,” says Clarissa, frost on her tongue.
“Or stay up later,” adds Hunter (not) helpfully.
“Or get up earlier,” smirks Rena. “We don’t care how you get it done, Miles, we just need you to get it done.”
I watch as they beautify themselves, Rena carefully applying her makeup (again), Hunter doing her nails, Clarissa effortlessly sliding a maroon lip gloss stick across her thin lips.
“So… did you make the same offer to Derek?” I ask, pointing to the row of framed black and white portraits next to poor, departed Angela’s; each with a somber “RIP” ribbon stretched across it. “And Clive and Marsha and Carmen?”
“Each and every one,” Clarissa sighs, barely looking my way. “Why do you think we’re slumming and using you?”
The other two zombies chortle; yes, chortle.
I stare down at the homework, then back at Clarissa, and start to fume.
I don’t get mad often, but… zombies?
Really?
And it’s not even the fact that there are zombies – real, honest to goodness zombies – that irks me so much as the fact that just because they’re zombies they think I should do their homework for them.
“What if I don’t do it?” I ask.
Clarissa snorts mercilessly, as if this isn’t even an option.
“You will do it.”
“Yeah, but… what if I don’t?”
“You will do it, Miles, because if you don’t then we will bite you, and you will die, and be reborn and then you won’t be able to read so hot, either. And then you’ll be in here with us anyway, trying to strong arm someone else into doing your homework.”
See, that’s the thing; the zombies wouldn’t need me if they weren’t reading at a, say, third grade level.
“I just don’t understand how this can go on,” I say, the thought of doing their homework for the rest of senior year making me more nauseous than hearing Hunter recount how delicious – and BIG – Angela Prescott’s brain was! “You know Dean Winters will be in here any minute, and all I have to do is—what? What’s so funny?”
“Who do you think suggested Dean Winters invite you to study hall this period, Miles?” snarks Hunter when she’s finally stopped giggling.
“Okay, you guys, but… so what? Maybe he’s just a dirty old man who digs hot chicks and—”
“Maybe we chose the wrong honor student,” Rena points out, standing up on her long, cheerleader legs. “I mean, guys, this one doesn’t seem very smart.”
I watch her as she walks toward me, all legs and arms, bare waist and shoulders.
She’s like a panther on the prowl; even her eyes are vaguely… yellow.
The other two watch her as warily as I do.
“Careful there,” cautions Hunter, on the edge of her seat now. “We need this one, Rena; we’re running out of honor students.”
“Yeah,” reminds Clarissa softly. “How many of Orchard Park’s smartest kids can go missing before their probably equally smart parents start putting two and two together, Rena?”
“Relax,” she almost hisses, closing in on me as I begin to notice all those things I’d overlooked before: the not just pale skin but almost granite, leathery look of it up close, the almost ice cold waft of air that’s followed her across the room and those dead, yellow eyes. “I just want to do a little more… convincing… since words obviously aren’t working.”
I gulp and look away as she slides onto the lab table in front of me and inches dangerously close.
“Have you ever broken a bone, Miles?” she asks simply, causing a wave of fear to ripple through my body.
Before I can reply she reaches for my hand.
I figure she’s a girl, I can just yank it back if I want, but her grip isn’t just ice cold, it’s steel strong.
“N-n-n-o,” I say, pushing my glasses up on my nose with my free hand.
“Too bad,” she purrs, looking anything but. “I was hoping this wouldn’t be your first time.”
With that, and just the slightest pressure, she bends my pinky in two.
It snaps quietly, like when you break a cookie in two; the pain blossoms in my hand like I’ve just exploded a firework inside my closed fist.
When I scream, and I do scream, she covers my mouth, even my nose, with her hand; it muffles the sound – and my ability to breathe – quite effectively.
I struggle and squirm, the pain in my hand falling away to the panic in my lungs; I can’t breathe!
Her yellow eyes smile as she takes her second hand and wraps it, almost gently, around the back of my head.
Now she applies even more pressure, her grip tightening from the fron
t and the back simultaneously, her skin ice cold, almost like freezing metal cold, against my own.
I squirm in my seat and try to kick away from the floor with my legs, but I can’t; she’s so strong, so incredibly strong and fierce, all I can do is stay still and hold my breath.
It doesn’t take long.
I hyperventilate, quaking under her hand, sweating, bucking, shaking; her grip never weakens.
In fact, the more I panic, the tighter it gets.
I hear voices behind me, then beside me, the other two begging her off, warning her of consequences, but soon the voices seem far away and distant; and then I can’t hear them anymore.
Then I can’t hear anything anymore.
The room grows dim and I give in; then it goes black and I give out.
I wake with a start, head pounding, pinky numb, bright light in my eyes.
I sit up, feeling lightheaded, only to find myself propped against the nearest wall like some useless prop in the Drama department.
I look down to find my pinky wrapped in some kind of white funny papery material.
I say something like “Whazzithumpriffleboss?” and the girls chuckle, apparently relieved.
“Phew,” says Clarissa, kneeling over me protectively, her heaving chest flush with my face; too bad my eyesight is too blurry to full appreciate it – them – whatever. “We thought we’d lost you there for a minute.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“The shock from your finger must have—”
“It wasn’t shock,” I spit, harshly, interrupting Hunter as I turn to face Rena, who is pacing nervously near the front door. “She broke my pinky then… then… choked me out.”
I notice Clarissa and Hunter, still kneeling over me, sharing a look.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, Miles,” says Clarissa, sounding… different; sounding… loud. “We’re just, worried, that’s all.”
“Why are you shouting at me?” I ask, still ticked off and trying to back away from these shrieking shrews. “I’m the one who should be mad at you.”
My head is pounding.
“I’m… not… shouting,” Clarissa says, more quietly this time, standing up and throwing shade at Rena as the pacing zombie in the doorway avoids her BFF’s eyes.
I try to stand, but it’s hard; I’m still dizzy.
The girls help me up and into my seat.
I ask, “How do you two keep your hands so warm? I thought they’d be… colder… somehow. They were before, I mean…”
They share another look, then Hunter slinks over to Rena and they confer in the corner by the door.
“How long was I out for?” I ask Clarissa, who no longer wraps a red strand of hair around her finger or looks quite so cocky.
She avoids my eyes but I quickly look at the clock. “It’s 5? How is it 5 already? How… how… will I get home? I mean, I’ve missed my bus.”
Clarissa doesn’t need to consult with the other two to answer, “I’ll drive you home, Miles; no worries.”
I shake my head, looking down, and that’s when I see it; blood.
On my sneaker; a smeared… we… smear of blood.
I almost say something, because I hate blood, but if all Rena did was break my pinky, why is there… blood?
“What is this thing?” I ask, carefully unrolling the fuzzy white strip from around my pink.
“It’s… a panty liner,” Rena says from the doorway, snorting. “Why, haven’t you ever seen one before?”
I don’t answer, too busy staring at my bloodless pinky.
My mind reels, my pinky is bent, and slightly blue, but it doesn’t hurt.
Not at all.
And it should, right?
I mean, I’m no expert in broken bones but I’ve always heard they hurt and, it sure did before Rena choked me out.
And the light is too bright in here, and when the girls whisper I can hear them, hear them even as Clarissa inches toward the other two and hisses, “What did you do, Rena?”
“Nothing,” Rena lies.
“That’s crap,” hisses Hunter, quietly, looking over her shoulder to see if I’m listening; I pretend to stare at my crooked pinky finger and ignore them.
“When we were out, buying that panty liner in the girls’ room, you did… something… to Miles?”
I let them squabble, watching the clock carefully now; 5:01.
5:02.
I sit at my desk quietly, watching them – and the clock; 5:03.
I take my good hand and, whenever they’re not peering over their beautiful shoulders at me, feel around my neck, my shoulders – 5:04 – my back, my hip, my hand, my arm – 5:05.
I find it on my ankle, just below where my sock covers up my Achilles heel; a small gash, the blood already crusty – except for the smudge Rena forgot to wipe off my shoe.
No, no, not a gash; the fresh wound has two parts – and upper and a lower.
Like… teeth.
Like… bite marks.
5:06.
I remove my fingers from my sock slowly, and watch the clock until it reads 5:07.
Then I sit back in my chair and smile; I haven’t taken a breath in seven minutes.
My favorite pen sits on the corner of the lab table; Rena had moved it to sit down before she broke my finger.
My Mom gave it to me just before freshman year; just before she moved in with her new husband.
It’s one of those fancy pens, metal outside and in.
It looks like it should be able to write upside down, underwater, on the moon, but it probably can’t; it is heavy, solid and supposed to be completely, absolutely, 100% guaranteed unbreakable.
I reach for it quietly just as Clarissa barks, “How could you?”
Then she softens her tone, looks back at me and whispers, “He could be fully reanimated already, Rena.”
Reanimated?
Suddenly, I like the sound of that; a whole heckuva lot.
I look at the pen in my hand, close my eyes, then close my hand.
I hear a slight snapping sound; the girls flinch, but I keep my hand closed and although they inspect me up and down from across the room, there’s nothing much to see but a four-eyed geek in his Chess Club T-shirt and Boy Scout pants with the jingly zippers.
When they’ve looked away again, I open my hand; the pen has broken in two.
I see a little scrape in my palm, more like a tear, but… no blood.
This is it, then; it’s really happened.
And Rena did it; turned me.
Turned me into… one of them.
There’s no other explanation; for the bright lights, the loud whispers, their warm skin, my cold skin, the dried gash on my ankle, the blood on my shoe, the superhuman strength, the broken, supposedly “unbreakable,” pen.
I sit them out; I wait them out.
They finally finish berating Rena and I try to look suitably miserable as they saunter back, looking slightly less confident than they had been at the beginning of 7th Period Study Hall.
“You ready for that ride home now, Miles?” Clarissa asks innocently, dull eyes wide and voice loud and full of fake confidence.
“Yeah, almost.”
“Almost?” asks Hunter, the slightest hint of irritation creeping back into her voice.
“Yeah, I just… wanted to hang back and ask Rena something?”
“Me?” asks Rena, yellow eyes wide. “I already apologized for your finger, dude.”
“No,” points out Clarissa, purse over her shoulder, already heading for the door with a smile of smug satisfaction. “You didn’t, Rena; you owe him at least that much.”
“Yeah,” purrs Hunter, inching over and giving me a goodbye kiss. “You owe him an apology, Rena; that, and so much more…”
Then she joins Clarissa in the doorway as the three share knowing looks under the American flag at the front of the room
I grin, cluelessly, like I’m still their victim, and keep my hands behind my ba
ck.
The three girls whisper something, look at me knowingly, and then two saunter out.
When the door closes, only Rena remains.
She walks over, saunters again, that panther in motion move she has down so well.
I kind of look away like the old, bashful me and wait until she’s close enough to touch.
“Don’t you want to give me a goodbye kiss, too?” I ask.
“Goodbye?” she asks, taken slightly aback.
“I’m not stupid,” I whisper, looking closely at her ear. “I know what you did to me; and I know that they told you to do to me… again. I heard it all, Rena; every last word. So… don’t I deserve a goodbye kiss?”
She rolls her eyes, sighs and leans in.
I never get my goodbye kiss.
I walk away from her, hands not even trembling anymore, and open the classroom door very, very slowly.
“I can’t believe you did that, Rena,” says Hunter as the door creeks open.
“Yeah,” whines Clarissa, her back to the door. “Where are we going to find another honors geek to do our work now?”
“I don’t know,” I croak, throat suddenly dry as I survey the empty commons area. “But you better work fast. My mid-term’s coming up in less than two weeks.”
“Miles?” Clarissa asks as Hunter leans into the classroom.
Clarissa follows and, eventually, I do too.
I mean, why not?
There, on the floor, eyes eternally shut, lies Rena; half of the pen sunk deep in each ear.
Hunter runs to her friend but Clarissa stays behind, eyeing me with close, curious scrutiny.
“Miles?” she asks, a half-smile on her round, porcelain face.
“You better call Dean Winters and whoever else knows about you three to come clean this up,” I croak.
“We usually clean up our own mess,” Clarissa explains, but there’s a hesitance in her voice I’ve never heard before.
“Not today you don’t,” I say, tugging her aside as Hunter whips out her cell, calls somebody on speed dial and starts shouting orders in that presumptuous tone of hers. “You promised me a ride, remember?”
“Okay, Miles, sure,” she agrees, still hesitant, but running out of choices now. “Where are we headed?”
“You guys must know a good butcher, huh?” I ask, stomach rumbling.
“Butcher?” she asks as I sling wide the double doors to the student parking lot, not bothering to hold them open for her.
“Yeah,” I grin into the bright afternoon sunlight of another beautiful day in Orchard Park. “Suddenly, I’m starved for something bloody and… raw!”